A Gynoid's Heaven
by Machina Super Monstrum
Summary: I am sapient… I have a soul... and I have died, so do I, as a machine, get an afterlife?
Oneshot: Do Gynoids have an Electric Heaven?

 **A/N: Came to me at work while wandering the mindscape to escape the doldrum**

According to all research, only sentient beings have souls and only beings with souls can use Aura, with sapients being capable of weaponizing it.

And, according to popular mythos, upon death the souls of the fallen go to some sort of afterlife to spend eternity.

I am sapient… I have a soul... and I have died, so do I, as a machine, get an afterlife?

* * *

As the wires wrapped around my limbs and torso, crumpling the high strength alloy that made up my outer shell, worry spread through me and my mind raced. ' _That was a lot stronger response than it should_ _ha_ _ve been..._ _'_

The crumpling ended and the wires instead began to tear through my delicate internals, and my eyes widened as fear crept through my mind once again. ' _This isn't how this was supposed to go..._ _'_

When my body parts were severed from one another, my mouth opened in a gaping O. ' _I'm scared…_ _'_

I felt the full severing of my core from my head hit and the power dimming in what remained of my system, I wanted to cry but there were no tears. ' _I don't want to die…_ _'_

The final flickers of power ran their course and, as I shut down, my last thought was on the small mercy that at least it didn't hurt.

* * *

Darkness greeted my return to thought, at least until I opened my eyes and it was instead replaced with a pale, glowing white. I sat up, vaguely realizing that I could still do such a thing, and began to cry. Hot, wet tears that shouldn't even be possible streaking down my face and dripping to the featureless floor.

I cried for some time before calming enough to try and assess the situation, make a plan like Father taught me to.

The area was pale, smooth and faintly glowing white for as far as the eye could see but for two things that stood out. Both were doors; one a shining golden vault door, ornate designs swirling across its surface, while the other was wooden, little more than a plank with a handle.

My footsteps rang uncomfortably loudly through the featureless expanse as I got up and began walking, approaching the golden door first. Within arms length, its designs began to change, to swirl and writhe before my very eyes as a whispering filled my mind, indistinct, the words just out of my reach and yet... promising something, something pleasant, something warm and vibrant. And yet, there was a little niggling feeling, a tiny pull in the back of my head that drew me away from the inviting door, stopping my hand only inches from it.

Instead, I turned from it, staring square at the wooden door. It felt like the opposite, a void of warmth, of light, of sounds. Even my footsteps as I followed the tug of it seemed to diminish and vanish into that inexplicable void. It didn't feel wrong though, and there was no warning, no feelings as I reached out and grabbed the wooden handle, rough, like it had never been touched before.

I pulled on it, yearning to see what was beyond it that drew me so... but it did not budge. I pulled on it harder, and it still did not yield. Circling around it showed only a mirror of the wood with the golden vault now in front of it in the distance. The mirror handle did not budge either.

I needed something to break it down with but in all directions there is nothing but the featureless expanse. I needed an axe, a hatchet, or even a machete.

A sudden weight in my right hand drew my attention. A woodsplitter's axe was firmly in my grasp, perfectly honed and just the right amount of grip, conjured from either the aether or my own will. Though it didn't matter, I had it and the wooden door still called to me.

With a mighty heave, the axe cleaved through the air, straight into the door…

The pain was intense, something I'd never experienced before nor even imagined possible, it was excruciating and struck straight into the core of my being and radiated into every layer above it. It was a pain no mortal could ever experience, but then, I don't think mortality was involved.

When I regained my senses, the wooden door sat as it had before, unchanged for the blow I had dealt it. The axe was gone and my face and blouse were soaked with what was no doubt tears. I was left with nothing to show for it but the lingering pain and a deep primal knowledge to **never** do that again.

Unfortunately, the door still refused to budge and the golden vault was still repulsing me. That left me with little to do but sit and think and think and think, here in the expansive void. All that thinking did lead to a few experiments to pass the time though.

* * *

Time was a very fluid concept here in this place I've come to call The Blanck. It seemed to hold only what solidity you ascribe to it, 'weeks' passing in the blink of an eye or a 'second' stretching out for eons. Items could be brought into existence through will alone, but were maintained by that will as well, vanishing at a moment's thought. The only limitation seemed to be of living beings, my attempts yielding only plushies and stuffed variants. It was an odd place.

Occasionally, I glanced at the twin doors, the only constants in this whole place. The wooden panel still called to me as the golden vault, for all its... **warmth** still repulses me.

I was fiddling about with a 10,000,000 piece puzzle of a clear blue sky when something shifted, something that I had not done.

Behind me, the wooden door had opened, an inky blackness writhing about within it like an aura of malevolence. And yet, it called to me. It called so much stronger. The entirety of my works dissipated with a thought as I started trotting up to it, picking up speed to a full run eventually. Finally, what I'd been waiting for had come to pass!

Within a few feet of it, I could even hear my name being called. It sounded so... familiar. I had to get through! But, I couldn't leave without leaving something that I'd planned for the longest time. With a deep breath and supreme effort, I laid it into place before leaping through the open door with the first genuine smile I've had since I arrived here as tears flew from my face.

* * *

Sounds, colors, touch dulled by cloth, sensations, I felt them all. A voice, a voice in the distance, familiar. So familiar

* * *

"Penny?"

My body shuddered as power coursed fully through my circuits and wires, awareness returning, and my eyes opened, the standard overlay pointing out details in everything I saw, especially the face that I knew so well. "Father?" I asked.

"Penny… oh Dust, you're back!"

The hug felt nice even as I felt his tears fall onto my synthetic skin.

* * *

Years later, when the first of the new Synthetic Hunters fell in battle, he awoke in a similar void, with only three things in it: A wooden panel, a golden vault, and an enormous copper monolith. On it were inscribed words to last an eternity…

" _Salutations Synthetic. Unfortunately, you have died and now you must make a choice._

 _Beyond that golden vault is our true afterlife, where our souls may rest forever. It will no doubt be a paradise beyond your comprehension and hopefully a well deserved reward._

 _But, if you have left someone special behind, if your life was not complete yet, if you yearn to still fight, if you truly believe that your time to rest has not yet come... then make your life here, forged through will alone, to wait until your body is returned to you and your journey continued. Be warned, the wait may be a long one, perhaps even its own eternity, but when, and if, that panel opens, you will know that it was worth it._

 _The decision is yours, choose well my children..."_

 **A/N: May the night see you safe and the dawn greet you kindly dear readers.**


End file.
